Leave evidence of lightning strikes

[Taunya]

Last week I had a bit of confusion when one of my unclaimed horses from
husbandry had severe burns in a locked room with no signs of entry or such,
until Niamh asked if it was an outdoor room and I remembered the thunder
storm that had occured the previous day.

I think it would help prevent confusion if on a lightning strike event, the
code automatically [strike]set a mood (perhaps 7 day?)[/strike] leaves behind a notake 'Scorch marks from a lightning strike are here' object that decays in 30 IC days To indicate that there was a strike there.

Perhaps they could be wiped away with 'masonry scrub' if someone doesn't want to wait the week for one to disappear by itself.

[Puciek]

Agreed, although only when there was something player owned inside.

[Starstarfish]

Even if there isn't property that's directly affected - if that happened at the Crossroads you'd think vNPCs would be talking about it.

[Rabek]

That could get spammy, depending on how often lightning strikes. You also have to consider that it may be overwriting an existing mood.

Doing it as little as possible seems best; only when necessary.

[Starstarfish]

Perhaps it could load an object of some kind that disappears after a time instead?

IE - a scorch mark here shows a lightning strike - or something like that.

[Puciek]

Even if there isn't property that's directly affected - if that happened at the Crossroads you'd think vNPCs would be talking about it.

You can have the same effect by putting the lightning mood yourself, without the risk of spamming around with thunder.

[Starstarfish]

But that's the point - how do you set a mood about something you don't know happened?

[Puciek]

But that's the point - how do you set a mood about something you don't know happened?

Just like we set moods about anything when we want to use it as an rp hook - we make it up. Just because Thunder didn't strike at xroads codedly, doesn't mean that a mood couldn't be placed that it did after a storm, at least as long as it's not set to give a PC any specific advantage.

[Taunya]

Starstarfish's object idea works too.

Overwriting existing moods was my only concern about my suggestion, and that would take care of that.
I don't think it should only show if there's a player-owned item in the room- the horse in question wasn't yet claimed, and thus not player owned. And would be interesting to see just how common lightning strikes are by seeing the various spots that were struck following a storm.

Ammending my suggestion to have it leave a notake 'Scorch marks from a lightning strike are here' object that decays in 30 IC days.
(plus making them removable with the 'masonry scrub' command if someone doesn't want to wait the week.)

[Puciek]

The problem with having it as an item is that items are notoriously easy to overlook - that is why we have moods so we can quickly see if something has happened in a room. Especially when you travel through a room you will at most pay attention to the moods (usually, I tried to use dropped items as RP hooks many times, and without moods there rarely was any success), not open doors or items on the ground.